Rolling Stone miser Mick Jagger is right not to help out his children

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Mick Jagger's long been said to be mean with money. It’s a nasty trait — those who have it tend also to have a meanness of spirit. 

For this reason, I sympathise with Jerry Hall, who’s locked in a battle with her ex over Downe House, the £10 million Richmond property that’s been her family home since 1991 but which Jagger has never signed over to her. 

Now she wants to be able to sell up so that she can give some money to their three eldest children — Lizzie, 29, James, 27 and Georgia May, 21 — to buy homes of their own.

Struggle: Jerry Hall's locked in a battle with her ex Mick Jagger over Downe House (pictured), the £10 million Richmond property that's been her family home since 1991 but which he has never signed over to her

Jagger opposes the idea on the grounds that his children have already had a  privileged upbringing and should make their way into the world without any help from him. And though it pains me to admit it, I think he’s right. 

For whatever our incomes, too many children have come to expect that their parents will ease their financial burdens at every opportunity, indulging them in a way our own parents would never have dreamed of doing for us.

  More... Jagger, Jerry and the war over his £10m mansion she calls home RICHARD KAY: Mick furious as Jerry airs money woes 'I used to hate my knobbly knees but now I accept my body and respect it': Lizzy Jagger poses in barely there bikinis for new swimwear range from Skiny

The truth, I’m afraid, is that many of today’s pampered teens won’t contemplate getting out of their beds on a Saturday or Sunday morning to do anything that sounds like work.

But dare to suggest they might like to work to pay for the longed-for concert ticket or Topshop must-have, and they look at you as though you’re asking them to shin up chimneys. 

Not budging: Jagger opposes the idea of signing over the house on the grounds that his children have already had a privileged upbringing and should make their way into the world without any help from him

No wonder newsagents complain that they simply can’t find youngsters to do paper rounds.

The change within just one generation is extraordinary. I had my first Saturday job at 13 — starting at 8am in a bakery (later graduating to working in a jeweller’s) — and continued to work  right through until my A-levels, school holidays included.

Apart from pocket money, I never expected my parents to give me anything extra, partly because they weren’t wealthy but mostly because it simply wasn’t the way things were done.

My friends and I all understood that we had to work for what we wanted, whether that was going on holiday on our own for the first time or buying our first cars.

Jagger's long been said to be mean with money, but on this occasion Sandra Parsons thinks he's right

By contrast, today’s school-leavers are all too frequently still dependent on their parents for everything from handouts to somewhere to live. Some of my friends whose children have moved back home after university say that not only are they letting them off paying for their keep,  but they often give them spending  money, too.

We all mean well. Why charge your adult child rent when you know he’s saving for a house deposit?

Why insist your teenager gets a Saturday job when you know the academic pressure he’s under to pass exams? Why refuse to buy your daughter that longed-for ticket to a music festival when you know all her friends’ parents will be shelling out?

It doesn’t end there, either. Many young couples today don’t even contemplate getting married until they can afford to live in homes that wouldn’t disgrace an interiors magazine. If I’d had the same attitude, I wouldn’t have been able to marry until my 40s. As it was, my daughter was born in a one-bedroom flat  furnished from junk shops, and had to sleep in the hallway.

But by constantly opening our wallets, we’re doing our children no favours in the long term. What they don’t realise — and what our well-intended cushioning is  failing to teach them — is that out of necessity comes not only invention but, even more crucially, drive and determination.

So what if you can’t get the job of your dreams? Get another one instead and work your way up from there. And if you can only afford a damp-ridden basement with fungus growing on the ceiling? You’ll survive — and it’s a powerful incentive to work all hours until you can afford something better.

As Mick Jagger so memorably sang: ‘You can’t always get what you want. But if  you try sometimes, you just might find you get what you need.’

  Stop obsessing, Gwynnie, and pass the pasta In an interview to promote her new cookery book, Gwyneth Paltrow reveals that she ‘nearly died’ after a third pregnancy didn’t work out.

Whether it was a miscarriage or an ectopic pregnancy isn’t specified. But what’s clear is that she’s never got over the death of her father (with whom she says she had a ‘love of your life’ relationship) ten years ago and that she is still profoundly unhappy.

Like many neurotic women, she’s obsessed with food. She’s adopted a frankly insane diet regimen after feeling ill during a Sunday lunch two years ago.

What's clear is that Paltrow's never got over the death of her father (with whom she says she had a 'love of your life' relationship) ten years ago and that she is still profoundly unhappy

She thought she was having a stroke: it turned out merely to be a migraine and a panic attack.

After this, she saw an American doctor told her to avoid most food (no sugar, wheat, dairy, eggs, meat, shellfish, corn, tomatoes, aubergines, peppers or potatoes). Instead of putting her on an idiotic diet, this doctor should have been asked her what makes a woman who is successful, beautiful and rich, with a handsome husband and two healthy children, so utterly miserable.

I don’t wish to be unkind, but might I gently suggest that if Gwyneth Paltrow were to spend a little less time obsessing about herself, she might find it possible to eat a bowl of pasta without fear of passing out?

 

Nancy Dell’Olio, bitter that her former lover Sven-Goran Eriksson has finally won the battle to evict her from his £2.7 million Belgravia flat, says the former England manager is now ‘a loser, the dead weight that keeps me from soaring’. Really? It wasn’t Sven who stopped her soaring on Strictly. What stopped her was two left feet, no sense of rhythm and a complete lack of talent or self-awareness.

  Dan Stevens has transformed into a slim, stubble-chinned template of a male Hollywood box-office star

Dan's looking desperateDan Stevens - Matthew in Downton Abbey - hasn’t been in America more than a few months and already he’s transformed into a slim, stubble-chinned template of a male Hollywood  box-office star, a sort of cross between Bradley Cooper and Daniel Craig.

I’m sure the movie moguls are pleased.

But he’s never looked more in need of Carson, wielding a badger-hair shaving brush, a jug  of water and some Penhaligon soap, not to mention a decent meal from Mrs Patmore.

He's a royal knockout

No doubt the Middletons hoped that by inviting him to the Royal Wedding, Uncle Gary — a paunchy, tattooed, self-made millionaire once caught on camera snorting cocaine — might be contained. 

How wrong they were. The purpose of his highly entertaining interview with Hello! magazine (‘would I play a part in the future monarch’s upbringing? Of course I would’) is unclear. 

Perhaps it was to sell his house, the gloriously named La Maison de Bang Bang in Ibiza, which we’re told is  on the market for £6 million. 

Or perhaps it was  simply for the sheer fun of upsetting his sister Carole, who must be beside herself with rage — especially as he reveals he’s moving to London and planning to write a book about his life. 

I predict that this is just the first of many shots across the Good Ship Middleton’s bows from the very loose  cannon that is Uncle Gary. I can’t wait. 

  Yes, it was shockingly reckless of Peter Saunders to have taken his 12-year-old son Charlie up a perilous icy trail without checking first that they were properly equipped. But we all of us have done irresponsible things with our children: I still go cold with fear at the memory of the day my daughter nearly drowned, aged three, in Center Parcs because I took my eye off her when the wave machine came on.

She survived. Peter and Charlie Saunders did not, and my heart goes out to Peter’s wife and daughter. I hope they can find it in their hearts to forgive him.

Their grief will be terrible enough without compounding it with blame.

        More from Sandra Parsons...   Can no one force GPs to do their job properly? 21/05/13   How could Tia's grandmother have trusted such a monster? 14/05/13   Here's proof Kate McCann's right never to give up hope 07/05/13   My advice to new mum Kate? Ignore ALL advice: Why the Duchess of Cambridge should follow her instincts - and turn to her Mum for support when she needs it 30/04/13   Behind most great women is a resentful husband... Denis Thatcher, found his wife's success hard to deal with. The need to strive and achieve is inbuilt into most men's DNA 23/04/13   We women failed to follow her blazing trail 09/04/13   Single child families and an epidemic of loneliness 26/03/13   Unpalatable reason so many career women end up childless 12/03/13   VIEW FULL ARCHIVE Gillian Shephard has written a book about what it was like to work with Mrs Thatcher after becoming enraged at ‘all the old cliches’ about her in reviews  of the film The  Iron Lady.

‘When will feminists give her the credit for being the only female prime minister we’ve had?’ the ex-Tory Cabinet Minister demands. It’s a good question. It’s often said that Margaret Thatcher did nothing to help women. In fact, she was a true meritocrat who promoted others purely on ability.

She felt that intellectual argument and  principle mattered far more than personality, class — or gender. If only one could say the same about all feminists.

Geri Halliwell travelled by Tube for the first time in 17 years last week. Despite the fact that she got off at the first stop, she still saw fit to tweet her travel tips afterwards, telling fellow travellers where to stand on the platform to be near the doors and advising us that there are ‘more seats at end carriage’. Such a gift for stating the obvious should not be left unexploited. She must write a book with Pippa Middleton immediately.

Poor Bill Roache, who’s played Ken Barlow in Coronation Street for 53 years, has caused outrage by claiming sex abuse victims are paying the price for their behaviour in previous lives. He’s also a member of something called the Pure Love Cult and at 80 seems to have lost the plot. Rather like Coronation Street itself, in fact. The kindest thing all of us could do now is look away.